tonight on "nightline," poisoning the wells? julia roberts made her famous, now, the real erin brockovich is sounding the alarm again, saying that well water in towns across the country is contaminated. "nightline" investigates. kung-fu u. ever wish you could do this? now, you can. chinese monks have opened their doors to outsiders. we join an nba stars to learn the secrets of healing and some new moves. and showdown. as newt surges and mitt goes on the attack, we're on the ground in iowa with diane sawyer and

george stephanopoulos on the eve of tomorrow's crucial abc news republican presidential debate. zw . >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, and terry moran in washington, this is "nightline," december 9th, 2011. >> good evening. we don't hear very often about the acts of citizen heroism that lift the american reality closer to the american ideal. but 11 years ago, hollywood brought us the extraordinary story of one exceptional hero, erin brockovich, who stood up for a community who she says was being poisoning. she's out there again raising the alarm, and the community she's trying to protect might just be yourses. here's my co-anchor cynthia mcfadden. >> so, ball up and make it right. >> reporter: meet the real erin

brockovich. bold, brassy, with more than enough fast to play herself in the movie named for her. >> you want me to trust you? do me a favor, ed, don't use big words you don't understand. >> reporter: instead, julia roberts got the part and the oscar. >> once the chromium hits the pound -- >> reporter: we met the real erin brockovich 15 years ago, reporting on the discontent in inkley and another small town called cattleman. in those days, she was a file clerk who found herself piecing together the story of people like these, who were sick and scared. >> it would either be a nose bleed or leg aches. >> i had hodgkin's disease in the neck and the chest. >> reporter: and there were so many more. brockovich ended up helping them make a case against their neighbor, the giant utility pacific gas and electric who they claimed poisoned their water supply with a chemical california now recognizes as a

car sin know jen. chromium-6. and covers it up for decades. what the people that live around here didn't know -- a few weeks after our story, they settled with the residents for $330 million, the largest such direct action lawsuit in history the movie became a hit, and erin brockovich became a household name. >> i'm mad as hell, and i'm not taking it anymore. >> reporter: she's since become promise of raising all our kid unless a healthy and safe place. >> the thing that can make the differences will be you. >> reporter: she's a rabble-rouser to some and a folk hero to others. >> i believe that we have a huge problem with the water in america. we don't want to make that connection that these chemicals

at varying levels in our water supply over time is, in fact, related to our disease process. and it concerns me greatly. >> reporter: now, people from across america e-mail her. >> each one of these green dots is a person reporting cancer in her neighborhood. we have been reckless in how we dispose of our waste. the earth and the waterways aren't some massive dumping ground. hi, guys. rrl she says people come to her because they don't know where else to go. >> nobody really knows what we're going through. you do. >> reporter: people like barbara post, of carson, california. post bought her dream house in a development of homes built in the 1960s. the 55-acre tract wasith 285 houses on it is called the carousel. >> we are trapped. we are between a rock and a hard place. >> reporter: that's because when the folks here bought their

homes, they didn't know that the carousel was sitting on top of what had been a shell oil reservoir. shell sold the land to a developer who promised to clean it up, but the homeowners say no one, not shell or the developer, warned them about the oil. >> i'm afraid to get tested for cancer because i -- i would rather just not know anything else. i've dealt with enough. >> i wanted to have children, now i can't have children. >> reporter: barbara and many of her neighbors claim the buried oil is now bubbling up in their back yards, emitting the chemical ben see, and while shell says they're testing and the current levels do not precept an imminent health risk, they have now warned locals to avoid disturbing the soil. so, the neighbors are trying to keep their kids and dogs from digging in the dirt. brockovich and the law firm she works with are now suing shell. >> communities don't want jobs

to go away. but there's got to be a trade-off here. they don't want to be poisoned, either. companies need to have a heart and a soul, too, i mean, that's their children out there. that's their neighbor out there. >> reporter: and that's another part of the american dream. community. >> you have coyotes out here? >> reporter: which brings us to another hot spot on brockovich's map. duncan, oklahoma. >> looking at all the data today and extrapolating and going backwards. >> reporter: residents here contracted her about a contaminate which has seeped into their wells. >> they told us, don't drink it, don't bathe in it. >> reporter: the source? a halliburton plant that cleaned missile casings during the cold war. halliburton items us they have accepted responsibility for the problem and are working with the community to clean it up. i can imagine some people at home saying, look. companies make mistakes.

companies have to do the manufacturing process. nobody sents out to poison anybody. >> it isn't about finger pointing or blaming. we need to join companies and communities together. because they coexist and one depends on the other. >> reporter: there are going to be a lot of people who listen to you and say, okay, important that we have healthy water but we're in economic crisis in this country right now. we need jobs. >> of course we need jobs. there's an opportunity here to create jobs in science, in technology, in developing new ways to dispose of our waste. you can put people to work. that's bringing back america. and it's worth it. and it's a fight that will i continue to do until the day i die. >> and 15 years after the hinckley settlement that made her famous, erin brockovich is still fighting her corporate

nemesis. cynthia is going to have the full story tomorrow on a special "primenight nightline." coming up, crouching tiger, hidden dragon for real. we drop in on china's legendary kung fu monks. to find you a great deal, even if it's not with us. [ ding ] oh, that's helpful! well, our company does that, too. actually, we invented that. it's like a sauna in here. helping you save, even if it's not with us -- now, that's progressive! call or click today. no mas pantalones! look. the mr. clean magic eraser kitchen scrubber. i heard it came from space. they have greasy messes in space? [ laughs ] well, not anymore, obviously. look how it cleans.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from washington with terry moran. >> they are the original kung fu masters, who inspired jackie chan and bruce lee and a certain animated movie panda. but the real crouching tigers don't just fight -- they've got an amazing ability to heal, as abc's david wright discovered when he traveled to china.

>> reporter: they are the jedi knights of buddhism. quiet, composed, focused. but beneath that calm exterior -- lurks days mi idazz skill and power. for 15 century, these monks have used the discipline of martial arts as a pathway to enlightenment. focusing the mind by training the body to do the impossible. it's crouching tiger, hidden dragon -- for real. could they teach us to do that? the real kung fu master is straight out of central casting, but not our little group. that tall guy at the end is a professional athlete. michael pietrus, a french player in the nba. here, for an unorthodox round of sports therapy.

kung fu sports rehab. >> i am here to get myself better. >> reporter: last march, pietrus badly sprained his right knee. >> i was trying to block somebody's shot and when i leaned in, i felt something bad on my knee. i had to go back to france. >> reporter: knee surgery in france still didn't resolve the problem. so, with the nba lockout looming, he decided to take advantage of the extended offseason to come here. for three weeks, he's essentially lived like a monk. pietrus admits he was skeptical when his friends first suggested the idea. >> to be honest with you, to me, it was only on dvds. >> reporter: kung fu movies? >> yeah, watching bruce lee, jackie chan. but when you actually live in the temple and you see how they go to practice and they don't give up, it make you realize that basketball, a two-hour practice, is really nothing.

>> reporter: for anyone who grew up watching the old "kung fu" tv series. >> do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet? >> reporter: the chance to become grasshopper, even for just a few days. >> how do you hear these things? >> how is it that you do not? >> reporter: is kind of hard to pass up. it turns out the kung fu lifestyle is even harder than it looks. for us, even the most basic moves were a struggle. but with the help of good teachers and lots of practice, we were able to show some improvement. >> i got a good ten years in the nba. >> reporter: after 15 centuries of extreme kung fu, they have lots of experience treating injuries. pietrus' doctor recommended massage and chinese herbs and acupuncture. >> every time he put the needle in my knee, i feel scared.

>> reporter: they don't just poke you with the needle. they have the confidence that comes with experience. as i found out myself, anyone who items you acupuncture is painle lesless -- is lying. pietrus got lots of advice in how to approach sports and competition. one zen master advised him to sit quietly cross-legged for two hours a day. how is the knee now? >> better. >> reporter: 100%? >> not 100%. but i will have a better season. >> reporter: to say thank you, pietrus and his group agreed to visit one of the larger schools nearby. all 12,000 students clapped us onto the campus. clearly, the students were well above our level. for the sake of honor, we nominated a champion from our class. nervous? >> i'm terrified. you see how big that guy is? >> reporter: to spar with the

school champion. afterwards, a contest in which we had the home court advantage. the final stop on this adventure is an exhibition basketball game. the good natured game, where pietrus showed some harlem globetrotters games, the others fought back like jackie chan. >> mix kung fu and basketball, i think it's a good reason. >> reporter: killer combination. >> it is. >> reporter: sports rehab here. there's a lot to be said for it. >> i think this place is good for me. >> reporter: even though it's a world away from the nba. i'm david wright for "nightline" in china. what's better than gold ? free gold ! we call that hertz gold plus rewards. you earn free days, free weeks and more fast. that's a plus.

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with the iowa caucuses just more than three weeks away now, the republican presidential race is taking on a new urgency and a key power struggle pits former speaker of the house newt gingrich against former massachusetts governor mitt romney, who addressed this showdown in an exclusive interview today with abc's david muir. >> reporter: but do you have to aggressively take him on at this point to stop the surging poll numbers for him? >> well, over the last few debates, we talked about differences between myself and other candidates. rick perry, for instance. he and i went at it on social security and on immigration.

i would expect that newt gingrich and i will have differences and we'll be able to discuss those, as well. >> all this comes on the eve of the big abc news republican presidential debate, in des moines. and that will be moderated by diane sawyer and george stephanopoulos, who join us now. diane and george, this is really crunch time out there right now, with the caucuses just a few weeks away. especially for romney what does he have to do to stop the momentum of gingrich? >> i've been asking george all day, what are his strategists saying to him, how do you get somebody ready far prize fight? >> he's got to do it, it's the first time he had to do it his whole campaign. he's been attacked, not the guy being aggressive. he's given clues out over the course of today how he's going to do it. he doesn't want to get personal with newt gingrich at all. he does not want to do that. but he is ready to draw some distinctions. what newt can't do tomorrow night is show that, you know what he's been accused of in the

past, losing his cool. he's got to find a way to take all this incoming fire and it's not just going to be coming from romney, but from the others, as well. >> right, and, terry, i was out today, i wandered through a supermarket, through a drugstore, and one man said, when i asked him, what do you want the candidates to do, what are you waiting for? and he said silence. because they've had 9,000 ads out here on television and he said, my clicker is worn out. >> who else should we watch? we talked about gingrich and romney. it's crunch time for all the rest of them, for their last shot. who else should we watch? >> you have to look at ron paul. he has a strong organization here and he's been tough on gingrich in the last week in his ads accusing him of serial hypocrisy. the other three, perry and bachmann and santorum, this is their last shot in many ways because if they don't get up into the top tier come in third or better in iowa, very hard for them to go on. >> and so many people said to me today and it really makes you

think that what happened with cain, the 15 beyond minutes, were about more than just the novelty initially. they were about what seemed to be just the straight answer. so many people said to me, can't they just say something simply? and can't they just say, here's what i'm going to do, there, you have it. here's what i feel. there, you have it. yes, no. and, you know, roun paul has ben the one person who has given those kinds of answers. so, it seems to me that there is still a lot of searching out there for straight talk. >> that, and remember, terry, that even here with all the attention here, 60% of the voters are going to make up their minds in the last three weeks. so, still a lot of fluidity here. >> and people hungry for that kind of clarity and leadership as diane pointed out. diane, george, have a great debate out there. and you can catch the republican contenders tomorrow night in des moines, iowa, for the abc news debate